This invention relates to a sailboat tiller extension assembly or hiking stick which maintains a fixed position in any orientation and is smoothly and uniformly movable by manual manipulation during operation.
Sailboats of smaller size are generally steered by a tiller connected directly to a rudder or to a pivot shaft on which the rudder is mounted. The resting or normal position of the tiller is along the center line of the boat. To facilitate steering, a hiking stick is commonly attached to the forward or projecting end of the tiller to serve as an extension of the tiller from the boat's center line to the sailor at the boat rail.
The degree to which a boat tilts, or heels, determines the shape of its hull underwater. To achieve maximum performance, the helmsman strives to maintain the most desirable underwater shape. The optimum tilt constantly changes depending upon the speed of the boat and the wind. To maintain maximum speed, the crew shifts its weight as conditions change. In heavy breeze the crew goes out on the windward deck to hike, or lean over the water. Hiking is used to counteract excessive heeling in heavy winds.
In a light wind when the boat speed is low, resistance caused by friction between the hull and the water is reduced by making the boat heel intentionally, with the crew sitting on the leeward side and the helmsman using the hiking stick to put his weight to leeward.
A hiking stick should be moveable in all directions, both horizontal and vertical. At best, however, its use requires additional skill and increases the difficulty of managing the boat. Previous hiking sticks were subject to erratic, uncontrolled movement, including swinging and drooping, when unattended by the helmsman. During maneuvers such as tacking or coming about, encountered in racing or sailing in heavy weather, the sailor is inconvenienced and even endangered by the free movement of the projecting hiking stick, as the tiller and swinging stick sweep through the cockpit when direction is changed.
Recognition of the problem posed by prior art hiking sticks is addressed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,262,619. The improvement disclosed in that patent was to provide a telescoping shaft which could be secured conveniently by clipping the hiking stick to the tiller length.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,929,086 discloses a hiking stick which is spring-tensioned and is retractable within a tiller tube when not in use.
These prior art devices do not provide a satisfactory solution to the problem of movement of the unattended stick, but rather are directed to storage means when the stick is not in use.